Insurance Times Advent Calendar: Mike Edgeley

Open your advent calendar below!

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1. What was your insurance industry highlight of 2025?

The Clear Group won a specific tender for a large corporate risk earlier this year. As the group now encompasses a much broader and diverse set of capabilities, that means we can put forward an outstanding proposition to large prospective and existing clients.

Seeing individual subject matter experts and teams from across the group come together on a tender and witness the extraordinary capability we now have – as well as the quality and professionalism of our presentation and service offering – is always a proud moment and a reminder of how we have evolved as a business.

2. What is your Christmas message for your insurance colleagues?

Make time to enjoy life. You only have to follow the news this year and there is an awful lot of doom and gloom out there. The horrific images from Gaza and Ukraine, the civil unrest in places like South Sudan and Ethiopia – let alone all the political shenanigans in the UK and the US – can all seem a bit depressing at times.

And yet, every time I have the privilege of attending a group event or industry function, you realise you are surrounded by fantastic people and familiar faces. We are very fortunate – enjoy it.

3. What do you hope to find under the industry’s Christmas tree for 2026?

Professionally, some more predictability in insurer pricing – especially on larger risks.

While a softening market is great for clients and welcomed by businesses, explaining why large swings in price – based not on clients’ risk exposure, but the dynamics of the insurance cycle, including insurer profitability – can elicit some interesting questions. Many clients wonder why our market cycles have such an impact on individual businesses, leaving them questioning whether they have been previously overpaying for cover.

Consistency and predictability help build trust. Significant swings in pricing for the same risk exposure does not.

Personally, I am hoping for less wrapping. Now, I don’t want to start sounding like One Foot in the Grave’s Victor Meldrew, but my children have taken wrapping to a new level and art form. It has become a bit of a competition to see how well disguised gifts can be wrapped, or – for pure amusement value – the opposite.

The below is a photo of a nutcracker my son gave to my daughter last Christmas. He found it in a garden centre. After managing to stop laughing, it then took my daughter about 30 minutes to open it with the amount of Sellotape used!

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